


Fire in the Ice

by gaslightgallows (hearts_blood)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Jotunn Loki (Marvel), Mild Sexual Content, Parent Frigga (Marvel), Romance, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2019-02-10 11:16:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12910773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hearts_blood/pseuds/gaslightgallows
Summary: The last of the Valkyries is called home for a royal event, and to meet the prince whose life she saved on Jotunheim a thousand years ago.





	Fire in the Ice

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lilithenaltum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilithenaltum/gifts).



> For Lilithenaltum, who asked for “Valki, really sweet or hot or both” for her birthday, and who also really wanted a Hades/Persephone Valki story. This ended up being more of a sweet AU with the Hades & Persephone myth as scaffolding, but hopefully I still did this justice. :) Happy birthday, hon! ♥
> 
> If you’re on Tumblr, please consider following me at [gaslightgallows.tumblr.com](http://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com) for more fic, reblogs about writing, and lots of randomness. Thank you for reading and especially for commenting. Comments are love. ♥

Brunnhilde has no desire to return to Asgard. There are too many memories there, too much pain. The guilt of her survival has never gone away. It has been over a thousand years since she left, with Odin’s blessing, to seek a place outside of the Nine Realms in which she could heal her wounds. Find peace. 

She is still looking. 

But that she lives at all is due to Odin’s rescue of her from the field of battle and to Frigga’s skill at healing. So when the order comes for the last of the Valkyries to return for the investiture of the princes, she goes. Because she still bears the tattoo, and the scars, and the sword of her order, and she is still sworn to protect the throne. 

And apparently, the princes asked for her in particular.

“Why?” she wonders when the queen tells her so, as they stand in the Observatory, Heimdall’s presence a welcome constant in a universe that changes too quickly for Brunnhilde’s liking. Asgard never changes. It is the Realm Eternal. After a thousand years away, coming back – coming home – feels like stepping into a world preserved in amber. 

Frigga smiles at the question. “Prince Thor has long admired the exploits of the Valkyrior. When he was a child, he wanted desperately to be a Valkyrie. I hated to disappoint him.”

Brunnhilde grins a little. “And the other? Laufey’s son? What did you end up calling him?”

“Loki,” says the queen, with no little amount of pride. 

“And why does Prince Loki wish for the presence of the last of the Valkyries?”

“He doesn’t,” Frigga says. “My foster-son is not the warrior that Thor is, and is not over-awed by feats of great courage and daring. But he wishes for the presence of the woman who saved his life in Jotunheim, those long centuries ago, so that he can thank you.”

“There is no need,” Brunnhilde starts to protest, uncomfortably, but the queen will not be gainsaid, so all she can do is put on the armor, grin, and dredge up long-forgotten court manners. 

She meets the princes at an informal soiree the day before the investiture. She has seen neither of them since they were babies and is at least a little curious to see what type of men they have become. Thor, she discovers, is big, blond, and boisterous, largely what she has come to expect from Asgardian princes. She well remembers Odin as a younger man, as well as his brothers Vili and Ve, who were killed in the conquest of Ljosalfheim. He has all of his coloring from his mother, but the blue eyes that look on her with awe and barely-concealed delight are as Odin’s had been, in the springtime of the realms. He wants to hear all of her adventures, and she smiles at him as she would at a large and friendly mastiff and promises to stay long enough to tell him at least half.

Loki, though, is something different. 

She remembers when Odin found him in the ruined temple in Jotunheim’s capital, how the blue of his skin had faded at the Allfather’s touch, and after Odin had taken her counsel to heart and brought the baby home to his wife, already grieving the loss of an infant son, she had assumed the shift in form would be permanent. 

But the foster-son the queen introduces her to is proudly and unapologetically Jotunn in appearance. “My son,” says Frigga, a title which he does not bother to deny, instead taking the arm she offers and smiling in true affection, “this is Brunnhilde Eskildottir, our most honored guest. Brunnhilde, Prince Loki Laufeyson of Jotunheim.”

Loki’s red eyes widen in astonishment. “The last of the Valkyries,” he murmurs. “So you came. When the king said that he’d summoned you, I thought surely that he was only placating us.” _Placating me,_ his tone seemed to say, as he offered his hand in friendship. 

She hesitates a fraction of a second – she has seen what the touch of a Frost Giant can do, when angered – and then takes his hand. The rough blue skin is warmer than she expects, and his lips, when he bows over her fingers, are thin and surprisingly soft. 

Frigga helps them make small talk for a few minutes, and then slips away, but not before Loki can stop her with a filial kiss on the cheek and a fond smile. “Thank you,” he says. “For everything.”

The queen’s eyes fill with tears, but she touches his face with a look of love and pride before she goes. 

“I so loathe making her cry,” says Loki softly. “But there is no avoiding it, this time. Once the investiture is done, I will have to prepare to return to Jotunheim, to rejoin my natural family.”

“Have you met them?”

“Yes, the Allfather has taken me back to Jotunheim several times, on diplomatic visits. This has always been the agreement, that I would be returned to my own people once I reached my majority. I am Laufey’s only child. He has no other heirs save me.” Loki shrugs and dismisses the Jotnar from his mind, and studies her. 

It has been a long time since Brunnhilde has been this close to a Frost Giant, and truthfully, she’s never been close enough to get a good, thorough look. All Jotnar look the same when they are trying to kill you. But she looks at Loki now, and notes many things. He is tall and well-made for an Asgardian, almost elegant, with his broad shoulders, slim body and smooth black hair, but for a Frost Giant... “I thought you’d be taller.”

“Everyone says that,” he acknowledges, a bit dryly. “The truth is that Laufey’s heir is a stunted pup, who would have likely frozen to death if Odin hadn’t saved him.”

Brunnhilde tips her head to one side, trying to read him. He has a lean, high-cheekboned face and a high forehead, and the combination is surprisingly pleasing, in spite of the odd skin color. The markings on his forehead and cheekbones have not yet solidified into hard ridges, but between them and the blue color, it makes his feelings hard to guess from his face alone. But his voice is deeply expressive, perhaps more so than he likes. “You almost sound like you resent him for that.”

“He never lets me forget it. And neither do Laufey and his wife, though they insist they wanted to reclaim me from the temple, and Odin just got there first. One wonders if it’s just propaganda to cover the fact that they tried to kill their only child by exposure.” His mouth tightens briefly, and then again, he dismisses the matter, raising her hand to his lips once more (has he really been holding her hand the entire time?). “Odin may have found me, but it was you who told him to take me in as his own. My thanks are a poor return for my life, but they are what I have to offer.”

“Your thanks are more than enough, my lord,” Brunnhilde says, shivering a bit at the feeling of his skin against her hand. He raises his head and she is suddenly struck by his eyes, which upon closer inspection are not all one solid shade of red, but shot through with gold and amber like the heart of a flame. 

His pale blue skin turns cobalt under her noticeable regard. “I have to confess,” he murmurs, his voice low and admiring and full of a dark sort of promise, as he runs the pad of his thumb lightly over her knuckles, “that I was anticipating someone older... and far less beautiful.”

The words send another shiver through her, and her throat goes dry at the thought of what that voice would sound like, were his mouth otherwise occupied. From the way his hand tightens, he is wondering the same thing.

Before they can wonder further, the gong sounds for dinner, and Thor arrives to escort them both to the feast. 

Brunnhilde says little and eats less during the feast. Her attention is riveted upon the high table. Frigga sits at Odin’s right hand, and Thor at his left. Loki, though, sits at Frigga’s right hand. He is resplendent in formal court dress of green and black leather, banded with gold and silver. At first, Brunnhilde frowns at this, wondering why Odin would dress his hostage foster-son in the colors of his own house, rather than giving such livery to Thor. It seems ill-omened to clad an enemy’s son in the colors of Odin’s own demonic first-born. 

Then again, she reflects, perhaps it is only appropriate. Thor wears the red and silver of Frigga’s house, colors that can never link the future king to the deposed queen, while Loki went abroad in the livery of the woman whose action had brought him to Odin’s table in the first place. 

Watching the royal family at table, she is struck again by the respect and love Loki shows to Frigga, the wife of his people’s conqueror. It is in great contrast to the aloof courtesy he gives to Odin and to the nobles who approach the high table with words of congratulation on the princes’ coming glory. There is some real affection, though behind the barbs (both verbal and literal) that he and Thor trade over their meat and behind their parents’ chairs. 

At one point during the meal, Loki looks up and locks eyes with her. He does not blush this time, but his nimble fingers suddenly become clumsy on his cutlery, drawing a jeer from Thor. Brunnhilde studiously does not look his way again, but she feels his gaze lingering on her for the rest of the feast. 

She does not see him again that evening, being called away from the toasting by Odin Allfather, to discuss the possibility of reforming the Valkyrior. It is not an idea that Brunnhilde has much enthusiasm for, and she is grateful when he puts an end to the meeting and has her escorted to her guest chamber. 

Inside, she finds a gift from Prince Loki: flowers made of pure clear blue ice, as unmelting as crystal. She holds one in her hand, expecting cold, but finding only warmth. 

All of Asgard seems to be crowded into the grand hall the next day, to see the formal investitures of the princes. Brunnhilde is on the dais with the king and queen, and the king’s nephew Fandral and Thor’s intended bride, the Lady Sif. She hates being out in the open in this way, but she stands tall and raises her head so that all may see and know that this is a day of such import that it has drawn the last of the great warrior women out of hiding to witness. 

Before all assembled, she sees Thor Odinson proclaimed heir to the throne of Asgard, and given the care of the mighty war hammer Mjolnir. There is much knowing whispering among the people, for the hammer has long been known to be destined for Prince Thor. He raises the hammer aloft and the crowd roars its praise.

Then Loki, in full regalia, kneels before the Allfather and is proclaimed Loki Laufeyson, prince and heir to the realm of Jotunheim, and the heirloom of his people, the fabled Casket of Ancient Winters, is brought forth and presented to him. 

When he clasps it in his hands, a chill wind sweeps through the great hall, briefly silencing the people, then making them shiver. Some are old enough to remember the Winter War, and they are afraid. But Loki merely smiles, and makes his obeisance and thanks to his foster parents. 

He does not look in her direction, but Brunnhilde still feels the chill, sure touch of the Casket’s powers, brushing her hands and her face gently, creeping tentatively towards other, more intimate parts and then stopping, as though waiting for her word to proceed. 

She gives Loki his answer later, when they slip away during a lull in the grand feast. He takes her hand and leads her through dark hidden passages that finally end in his own chamber in the royal family’s private wing of the palace. “Do that again,” she tells him, gasping in between hard heated kisses that are all tongue and teeth with nothing tentative about them. “I want to feel that again— _oh!_ ”

He chuckles as his hands send little rills of cold air under her clothing and over her skin. “I don’t need the Casket to do _that_ ,” he teases, letting the wind from his palms separate the layers of fabric and lifting them away from her body without resistance. He pushes her down on his bed, licking trails of fire with his tongue and then sending short icy blasts over the wet skin. It’s enough to make her bite her fist to muffle her screams, but when he does the same between her legs, she loses that battle. 

“I think they heard me down in the feasting hall,” she says lazily, watching his body in the moonlight as he removes the rest of his clothing. 

Loki laughs. “All the more reason to celebrate.” And then Brunnhilde sits up, and he gasps softly when she takes him in hand, stroking the prominent length of him. “There’s no need to go further,” he assures her, with a hitch in his voice that begs her to please keep going. “I’ve yet to have an Asgardian lover who wanted more than my mouth and hands.”

She smirks at him. “You have now.”

“You’re sure? You—” His worry is cut short when she grabs his hips and pulls him to the bed, flipping him onto his back, straddling him so that she can see his face as she sinks down on his cock, stretching around him. The groan that rises from his lean chest is the most beautifully wanton sound she’s ever heard. 

He comes quickly that first time, and so does she, and then she lets him roll her over and take his time. She’s had a lot of lovers over the centuries, but never a Frost Giant, and she is glad to make this new experience last. He has the long careful hands of a scholar and the rhythm of a skald and the tongue of a demon, and it has been an agonizingly long time since Brunnhilde has felt so utterly worshipped by a bedmate. 

In between bouts of lovemaking, they talk. She has never been a great one for talking after sex, but he has so many questions, and most of them cannot be asked, let alone answered, by the light of day in a crowded hall. 

“Was it true,” he asks, after a round in which they have both snapped their muscles chasing their climaxes, and cracked their jaws trying to hold in their shouts of pleasure, “that Frigga had a son after Thor?”

“Yes. Baldur. Though Thor is as much Frigga’s son as you are.”

His fingers still their stroking of her hair. “Which is to say... not at all?”

“Thor and Hela were both Odin’s distaff children. The sons of Bor were not known for keeping to their own hearths. But Baldur was legitimate, born in wedlock, and... There was never any real proof, but we all knew that Hela wouldn’t have countenance a threat to her power. The baby died while we were on Jotunheim.”

“And so that is why Odin decided to take me...”

“No. He was going to take you anyway, as a hostage, along with the Casket, and use you both as leverage against Laufey’s good behavior. If Laufey had disobeyed...” She trails off, realizing that her words do not surprise the prince. There is respect, of a kind, but little love lost between him and Odin. “But I was tired of death and slaughter and blood and tears. And the queen had just lost a son. You could not replace Baldur, but you could give her someone to love, to ease her grief. It was out of kindness to your mother than I counseled Odin to raise you himself.”

“And so, saved my life,” Loki murmurs. His arms, lean and strong, tighten around her. 

“Nearly cost you it, more like.” Brunnhilde traces her fingertips over his ice-colored chest. “It was only after Odin brought you home and announced that you were not merely hostage, but a foster-child to be given houseroom and raised in love, that she rebelled. Now there was a Frost Giant in her palace, that her father presumed to claim as his own. She wanted you dead.”

“And so you and the Valkyries flew to my rescue, and saved my life again.”

It was for the lives of everyone in the Nine Realms that she and her sisters had ridden to war against the goddess of death, and only Brunnhilde had returned, broken in body and soul. But even immortal minds find small intimate effects easier to comprehend than large and vast ones, and Loki is still young enough to be arrogant about his place in the universe. 

“You’re welcome,” Brunnhilde laughs, lifting her face for a kiss, which he gives her. It is a softer, more solemn thing than his previous kisses, and makes her battered heart flutter. “I’m glad you survived,” she murmurs against his lips, feeling suddenly shy. 

“I’m glad you came back,” Loki whispers, and rolls her onto her back again. 

He is supposed to return to Jotunheim with the Casket, now that he is a lawful adult, and take up his position there as prince, and over the next few days, he makes a very public show of ordering people about and making preparations for his departure. But it is clear to those closest to him that he is making a lot of noise over something he has no intention of doing. 

“You can’t put it off forever,” Brunnhilde points out, after he has distracted her from scolding him by pulling her into the bath along with him, clothes and all. 

“Forever is so dire a word.” His magic makes quick work of her clothes and his fingers even quicker work of her determination not to be distracted. When she is limp against his wet chest and clenching around his hand, he grins and kisses her hair. “And as Laufey is still living and hale, I’m not really in a hurry to rush off to Jotunheim, no matter that I am expected to.”

“It’s your responsibility,” she says, planting her hands on his chest and pushing up to glare at him. 

“I just met the woman of my dreams. I can’t up and leave her now.”

So Loki puts off his departure for months, ignoring the commands of both his foster father and his natural father to finish wrapping up his affairs in Asgard and do his duty to his people. But there is always something: a protection spell that has not yet been properly warded, a research project for the archives that only he can complete. And while he prevaricates, Brunnhilde finds own her reasons to remain. Odin’s insistence that the Valkyries be reformed after a thousand years is a good enough excuse. 

And it distracts people from the fact that what she and Loki really spend most of their time doing is hurriedly coupling in dark corners, and fucking leisurely in his chambers. The research project languishes, the recruitment schemes for the new Valkyrior come to nothing, and the kings of two realms realize that they have put a powerful artifact into the hands of a young impulsive prince with too much time on his hands. 

Then... something happens. Brunnhilde does not know what, but it shakes him out of his romantic complacency and causes him to be absent from court for several days. Frigga may know where he is and what is on his mind, but no one else does. Brunnhilde’s bed is cold without her Frost Giant, and she begins to wonder if the prince has tired of their dalliance. If he has, she decides, it’s no concern of hers. She will go back to her work beyond the Nine Realms and be a mercenary again, and for the second times in her life, say to hell with Asgard.

She is lying awake in her chamber, on her side in bed, one hand stretched out to touch the place where he should be, when she feels the air shift. Loki is there... but as unlike himself as she has ever seen. He has shifted his form into the face of an Asgardian. His skin is pale and his eyes glow green in the moonlight, and he looks like a ghost of himself. But the hand he holds out to Brunnhilde is warm. 

“I’m leaving tonight,” he murmurs, rubbing his thumb over her knuckles. “I’ve stayed too long.”

“For me.”

“For you, my love, yes.” His smile is crooked. “And for other reasons. Jotunheim is my birthright, but Asgard is my home, and though it has not always been an easy place to live, it has given me more than I ever expected. But there is no place for me here, anymore. Thor’s betrothed is expecting a child, and there will be a marriage soon, which will leave little room for a foster son who has overstayed his welcome.”

“So... you are leaving. In the middle of the night.”

“The less fanfare, the better. I have a portal ready, hidden in the lower vaults.”

“What about the queen?”

“My mother is waiting for me below, to close the portal behind me.” He swallows once or twice, his jaw working against intense emotion. “No matter what family I find in Jotunheim, Frigga of Asgard will always be my mother.”

“And what of me, my prince?” says Brunnhilde quietly. “For all you know, I could be carrying your child right now.”

He stills. “Are you?”

“No. But would it make a difference, if I was? You would still leave.”

“I shall.” Loki brushes his lips over her fingers. “But not without asking you... Come with me to Jotunheim. Come away from all of this. There are beauties in the ice that you cannot begin to dream of, and old memories freeze solid, to be put away forever.”

For a moment, the world around her comes to a halt. To follow him, to run away and hide herself in the dark cold wastes of Jotunheim, where she would never again have to think of the Valkyries or Odin or the battles she has lost... “Yes.”

She throws on her clothes, sheathes her sword, and takes his hand. Frigga is unsurprised to see her in Loki’s company, and the queen kisses them both and bids them good fortune through her tears. Brunnhilde clings a second longer to her old friend, who will have to bear Odin’s wrath when her absence is discovered. 

Loki takes her hand and sheds the appearance of an Asgardian prince. It is handsome and elegant, but it is not his true face. Clutching her fingers tightly, they step through the portal, and into Jotunheim. 

The cold takes her breath away, and with it her pretense at calm. “The last time I was here,” she says, fighting to be heard over the wind, “I was fighting for my life.”

His grin is demonic in its glee. “That might be preferable to fighting Laufey’s displeasure, but it’s what we have to work with!”

He is right. The Jotunn king is _not_ thrilled that his heir has arrived six months late and with an Asgardian woman for his mate. Bad enough that his son has lived his entire life in Odin’s court. But Loki has also returned with the Casket of Ancient Winters, and for that prize, Laufey is willing to excuse much. 

The king’s palace is of blue ice and black rock, and the outside is as foreboding as it was a thousand years before. But within, there is light and warmth, and Laufey’s queen to make them welcome and comfortable. They are given a chamber together, deep within the mountain, far away from the cold, and their bed is a mass of furs that slide against their skin as they make love. “At last,” Loki murmurs, far into the night, when they are shaking and spent from their exertions, “peace.”

He falls asleep quickly, his head pillowed on her breasts. Brunnhilde lies away far longer, stroking his smooth black hair and wondering if she has not made a mistake. Not in the man – these past months have proven him to be true in his heart, even if he is called the god of lies – but in herself. She has spent a thousand years running from her past, only for her heart to be restored by the last good deed she ever did... and she is not a woman made for peace. 

The very next day, Prince Thor arrived with The Warriors Three, under a banner of truce, to parley with Loki – or rather, to plead with him to reason with Brunnhilde. 

“I am glad you do not make the mistake, _brother_ , of thinking that I hold her against her will,” says Loki coldly, his words made even chillier by their surroundings. 

“I would never believe such a thing of you, Loki, but she must be made to see reason. She is the last of the Valkyrior, and only she can rebuild such an elite fighting force. Asgard _needs_ her, Loki.” 

“As Asgard needed me, to cement this peace for so long. But what peace will remain, if Asgard forces me to give up the one thing that I can truly say that I love without condition?” The Jotunn prince shakes his head, prowling close to glare, fire-eyed, into Thor’s face. “You see her as nothing but a hero, as a Valkyrie, as a legend. I see her... as she sees me. I want her to have a little peace in life, Thor, to be seen only for what she _is_ , not for what she can offer to others.”

Brunnhilde overhears this from just beyond the throne room, and loves Loki for it. But she cannot permit him to make this decision for her. 

“My lords,” she says, entering the throne room, clad in her armor, her sword in her hand. 

The two princes stare at her in amazement and awe, as they did on the day she had first been presented to them. 

“I want it to be known: I do not want to return to Asgard.” She watches Thor’s face fall and Loki’s smile begin to widen. “But,” she continues, more resignedly, “I also don’t want to spend the rest of my life here.”

She reaches for Loki’s hand, to soothe the devastation in his eyes. “But I thought,” he begins helplessly. 

Brunnhilde squeezes his hand, then reaches up to pull his head down to hers, to kiss him thoroughly, licking into his mouth and biting his lip, claiming him. “I said I did not wish to stay here always. I said nothing of not wanting to stay with _you_ always.” She grins at his stunned look. “But I cannot put all the painful memories of my past away forever. So I will return to Asgard,” she says, turning to Thor, “and begin rebuilding the Valkyrior. I will honor my oath to protect the throne, on one condition: that the oath be extended to cover Jotunheim, as well as Asgard. For the heir to Jotunheim was raised in Asgard and would not see it forsaken... but neither will I forsake Prince Loki, now that I have found him.”

Thor agrees to return to Asgard to confer with the Allfather, and bids her and his brother farewell once more. Brunnhilde hardly hears him: the smile that tugs at Loki’s lips tells her everything that words cannot. 

“He’ll consent,” she says. 

“Of course he will. This will give him even more control over Jotunheim.” Loki wraps his arms around her and kisses her slowly. “But if it means I get to keep you with me, even if for only part of the time... I’ll take it.”

“And me?”

“And you. Though not right here,” he growls softly, holding her tight and transporting them back to their bedchamber. “It’s cold.”

Brunnhilde feels the warmth of his hands against her skin, and smiles.


End file.
